BJP wants Manmohan Singh to depose before CBI

ET Bureau|

Sep 05, 2013, 04.00 AM IST

BJP has asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to voluntarily depose before the Central Bureau of Investigation over the issue of coal block allocations.

NEW DELHI: The BJP has asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to voluntarily depose before the Central Bureau of Investigation over the issue of coal block allocations, raising the matter in Parliament on Wednesday after news reports suggested that the agency wanted to interrogate him in the alleged scam.

The main opposition, which agreed to cooperate in the legislative business only after the government agreed to allow its members to speak on the issue in both the Houses, also demanded that a first information report be filed on the missing files in the case. The Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party, which lend outside support to the Congress-led coalition at the Centre, joined the opposition parties in seeking an inquiry "to bring out the truth" about the missing coal files, saying it was a very serious issue.

Members of the BJP trooped into the well, shouting slogans, forcing adjournments in both the Houses. The standoff ended only after Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath held talks with senior BJP leaders LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley.

The government wanted the pension bill to be passed in the Lok Sabha and the land acquisition bill in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday. The BJP leaders insisted on taking up the coal files issue, which they said could not be raised on Tuesday since the prime minister had left the House after his intervention.

Swaraj and Jaitley, the leaders of the opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha respectively, later issued a joint statement, demanding that the government confirm or deny news reports that the Superintendant of Police KR Chaurasia required the examination of the PM on basis of the material before him so that no further tampering and doctoring of the investigation could take place.

"We are constrained to believe that the documentary evidence in term of files has been made to disappear, the prime minister is not available for answering questions before Parliament and when the investigating officer from the CBI wants to examine the prime minister he is currently not permitted to do so. The casualty in the process is the discovery of truth with regard to the coal block allocations," the two BJP leaders said, signalling the party's determination to pursue the matter.